Screening of fetal congenital heart disease by prenatal echocardiography

Objective:To evaluate the effectiveness of fetal echocardiography for the screening of fetal congenital heart disease(CHD).Methods: 4 200 consecutive pregnant women with gestational age of 20 to 41 weeks underwent echocardiographic screening for fetal congenital heart disease using four-view method,an integration of four-chamber view,left ventricular outflow tract view,right ventricular outflow tract view and three-vessel view.The results were compared with those of fetus autopsy from induced abortion and neonatal echocardiography.Results: In all 4 200 fetus,43 had congenital heart disease confirmed by fetus autopsy from induced abortion and neonatal echocardiography.By using the four-view method,congenital heart disease was diagnosed in 41 fetus,of which 37 had confirmed abnormalities and 4 had normal hearts.Six fetus with CHD were not detected by this method,and diagnostic errors occurred in 4 fetus.The sensitivity of the method was 86.05%(37/43),and the specificity was 99.90%(4 153/4 157).Conclusion: The four-view method is a simple and effective method to detect the structural abnormality of fetal heart,which has great clinical significance for prenatal screening of fetal congenital heart disease.